The Evolution of the Adventure Game, Part Two

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by Jeff Strand January 18, 2002

The Seriously Whacked Point of View “The Evolution of the Adventure Game, Part Two”

> LOOK

You are at the Just Adventure website (35 points have been deducted from your score). You see a “Seriously Whacked Point of View” column here.

> READ COLUNM

I do not know the word “colunm.”

> I MEANT COLUMN

I do not know the word “meant.”

> READ COLUMN

Which column do you want to read, “The Evolution of the Adventure Game, Part Two,” or “Random Babbling With No Discernable Purpose?”

> THE EVOLUTION OF THE ADVENTURE GAME, PARTTWO

I do not know the word “Parttwo.”

You are now reading the “Random Babbling With No Discernable Purpose” column (79 points have been deducted from your score).

Lately, I’ve been thinking about M.U.L.E., a science fiction trading game that Electronic Arts released in 1983. (This isn’t a complete non-sequitur, since there’s a connection between M.U.L.E. and one of the references in my previous column, but only the coolest people will find it.)

Mostly, I’ve been thinking about the fact that there was simply no reason by any human standards that this game should have been fun to play. It should have, at most, been moderately interesting for about three minutes, after which you’d return to the second act of the opera you’d been composing. But my friends and I could play that game all day! We couldn’t stop. We didn’t want to stop. We would fantasize about playing M.U.L.E. in the middle of playing a game of M.U.L.E.!

Similarly and much more recently, Bejeweled shouldn’t be any fun. I mean, seriously. You’ve got a screen full of jewels, and you swap adjacent jewels to form rows of three or more similar colors, which makes them vanish and be replaced by more jewels. Whoopee. Could you come up with a more boring concept?

But do you know how many times I played Bejeweled the week after I installed it? I know exactly how many times I played it, because the game keeps track and taunts you with this information. I’m surprised it didn’t monitor my phone calls to check if I’d be calling in sick the next day. I played it 100 times, and then the game told me I couldn’t play any more unless I paid the registration fee.

Unfortunately for PopCap Games, after the cold sweats evaporated I decided that I couldn’t justify paying for the privilege of getting fired from my job, losing my wife, lowering my high standards of personal hygiene, and being unable to pay for anything without trying to arrange three pennies in a row. There’s an online version, but thus far I’ve managed to avoid it.

Here’s the biggest problem with Bejeweled: I just lied to you, my most trusted readers. I played an online game of Bejeweled right after typing the word “hygiene” (and did very well, thank you very much). Not only that, but I just lied about my performance…my score was an absolute embarrassment. Sure, I lie about my performance all the time, but not where computer games are concerned! Obviously, it can’t be the game itself. No, they’ve imbedded some sort of addictive substance into the graphics, and I want this to stop.

Why are those people who make the Truth commercials harassing tobacco companies instead of targeting companies that manufacture addictive games? I’m sorry, I’m as adamant a non-smoker as you’ll find anywhere, but when I see those ads I want to light up a jumbo-sized Marlboro and blow smoke in the faces of those obnoxious teenagers.

Their point is that cigarette smoking is bad for you. Well, duh. I hate to say it, but if you take up smoking and don’t realize that it’s bad for you, it’s probably time to consider that perhaps you’re not the sharpest crayon in the box. They’re also trying to tell us that tobacco companies know there are health risks with their product (I guess they read the Surgeon General’s warning) but are releasing scientific reports that deny it. Maybe they are, but I’m willing to bet that of the multitude of concerns facing modern society, the problem of teenagers spending too much time reading scientific reports released by major tobacco companies ranks pretty low on the list.

On the other hand, it’s safe to say that cigarette ads in magazines try to portray it as “cool.” So if you really wanted to counterbalance their influence, you would create an ad campaign that makes smoking look uncool. Like, you’d show Just Adventure Editor-in-Chief Randy Sluganski with a cigarette. Teenage smoking would plummet to record lows. Or you’d show Britney Spears, and she’d be smoking a cigarette, but then she’d forget that she had it in her mouth and she’d try to take a drink of Pepsi and the cigarette/Pepsi collision would cause her to spill it all over her chest, forcing her to switch into the unrevealing dark green turtleneck sweater her grandmother bought her for Christmas.

So, we need a government-sponsored ad campaign that exposes games such as Bejeweled (or even Everquest) for the evil products that they are. At least with adventure games, you’re eventually going to win and be allowed to return to your normal life, but with Bejeweled there will always be the desire to play Just. One. More. Game. And that’s wrong.

Here’s the deal. I’m pretty uncool. For a generous acting fee, I will allow myself to be filmed sitting at my computer, playing a game and looking like a complete dork. This commercial can air nationally during prime time, complete with a scrolling message that people should also avoid http://www.jeffstrand.com, which is plenty addictive in its own pathetic way. Game consumption among the innocent will go down, the game manufacturers will be punished, and we can all go out and celebrate with a cigarette.

That’s what this column is about. Making the world a better place.

I realize that last time I said this would be “The Evolution of the Adventure Game, Part Two,” but I lied. Blame M.U.L.E.

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> HELL Y

Game over. Your score is -113 out of a possible 8000. This gives you the rank of Easily Entertained Web Surfer. Thanks for playing!